Northumberland--the rival and enemy of the Protector--had given intelligence of a conspiracy in which Somerset, Sir Thomas Arundell, Sir Ralph Vane, and several others were concerned. Of course there was the inevitable informer, and in this case a certain knight, called Sir Thomas Palmer, has recorded against him this unenviable notoriety. In Sir John Hayward's _Life and Reign of K. Edward VI._, we read,-- "Herewith Sir _Thomas Palmer_, a man neither loving the Duke of _Somerset_, nor beloved of him, was brought by the Duke of _Northumberland_ to the King being in his garden. Here he declared on St. George's day last before, the Duke of _Somerset_ being upon a journey towards the north, in case Sir _William Herbert_, Master of the Horse, had not assured him he should receive no harm, would have raised the people; and that he had sent the Lord _Gray_ before, to know who would be his friends: also that the Duke of Northumberland, the Marquis of Northampton, the Earl of Pembroke, and other lords should be invited to a banquet, and if they came with a bare company, to be set upon by the way; if strongly, their heads should have been cut off at the place of their feasting. He declared further that Sir _Ralph Vane_, had two thousand men in a readiness; that Sir _Thomas Arundell_ had assured the _Tower_, that _Seymor_ and _Hamond_, would wait upon him, and that all the horse of the _Gendarmorie_ should be slain." This must have been the day on which the boy-king records in his journal,-- "11 Oct., 1551. Sir Thomas Arrondel had ashuerid my Lord that the Towre was sauf." The "my Lord" here must have related to Somerset, which the King heard of in his conversation with Northumberland. On the 16 October, 1551, says Grafton,-- "being Fryday, the Duke was again apprehended, and committed to the Tower, on a charge of high treason." And the King records,-- "This morning none was at Westminster of the conspiratours. The first was the Duke, who came later than he was wont, of himself. After diner he was apprehendid." Sir John Hayward thus describes it,--